1/ Let me tell you a little story about the cluster**** that is going to play out over the coming month regarding North Carolina’s congressional maps…
2/ Yesterday a 3 judge panel ruled NC’s maps to be an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, saying the maps should be redrawn in time for the 2018 MIDTERM ELECTION, which is 70 days away...
3/ North Carolina Republicans want SCOTUS to stay yesterday’s decision, blocking a redraw until the Supreme Court itself can review the case on appeal. This would allow the current map to remain in place for the upcoming election…
4/ NC Republicans need a majority of the court to grant a stay, but (ROADBLOCK!) there are currently only 8 justices on the court (4 liberals, 4 conservatives). If they breakdown by ideology, Republicans can’t get a stay…
5/ ENTER KAVANAUGH, whose confirmation hearings are scheduled for the beginning of September. In order to get a stay, NC Republicans don’t want their request to be considered until Kavanaugh is confirmed and seated…
6/ Maybe that will happen by the beginning of the fall term (Oct 1), maybe not. There could be hiccups. We don’t know when exactly Kavanaugh could be in place to approve a stay...
7/ In the meantime, without any stay from SCOTUS, the 3 judge panel in NC is going to push forward with its decision that the maps must be redrawn for this coming election. They are walking down that path. They’ve made their decision…
8/ (Which is itself a whole other cluster****. Are they going to postpone the election? Not have primaries? There is no one running in any of these yet to exist districts. I can’t even)...
9/ So we have *3* big moving pieces: 1) Three judge panel moving forward w/ redraw 2) NC Republicans' stay application 3) Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Maybe these will all fall into place beautifully for NC Republicans, but until then no one knows wtf is happening this Nov in NC...
10/ If SCOTUS considers a stay w/o Kavanaugh on the court… see #8 in the thread…
11/ There’s no real moral here. I’m just describing a mess. But if you’re the kind of person who likes a moral, maybe it’s this: Kennedy thought he was being prudent by never actually deciding gerrymandering’s fate. Sometimes indecision is the messiest decision of all. END
